1. Field of the Invention
The present invention generally relates to a pressure-energized, metallic seal for sealing between a pair of axially facing annular surfaces. More specifically, the present invention relates to an annular metallic seal having an annular flange extending from one of the leg portions of the seal and/or at least one tab extending from one of the leg portions for handling, locating and/or orienting the seal. The present invention also relates to a method of manufacturing the pressure-energized, metallic seal of the present invention.
2. Background Information
Many different types of sealing devices exist for sealing two opposing surfaces to seal between or isolate opposite sides of the sealing device. In particular, annular sealing rings such as metallic O-rings are often used to seal opposing surfaces. These annular sealing rings are commonly made of metallic materials such as soft iron, carbon steel, stainless steel, high nickel alloy, Inconel or Nimonic alloys. Typically, conventional seals are manufactured by first cutting or punching “blank” rings of sheet metal out of metallic sheet material, and then bending each of the “blank” rings into the final desired cross-sectional shape using dies (i.e., a transfer press method). Alternatively, these typical annular sealing rings can be constructed by manually forming a band, butt welding the ends and then manually forming the required shape using progressive dies. A plating or coating can optionally be applied to the seals. These typical annular sealing rings can have cross-sections of various shapes. For example, a “C” seal or spring-energized “C” seal is typically an annular seal having a “C” shaped cross-section. Other types of known metallic seals have cross-sections which are parabolic, convoluted, “E” shaped, Y-shaped, omega-shaped (Ω-shaped), or the like.
Typical sealing rings (i.e., seals) generally function very well in certain applications. For example, some of these seals above perform very well under relatively large load forces (e.g., 100 to several thousand pounds per circumferential inch, pci), while others have been designed to function as low load seals such as the E-seal and Y-seal. Some of these typical metallic seals are designed to be pressure energized and/or can be coated with a deformable material (e.g., PTFE, gold, silver, copper, and the like) in order to achieve the desired seal integrity. Unfortunately, these typical sealing rings and the typical method of manufacturing these sealing rings have drawbacks.
In particular, typical seals often need to be handled by automated placement or even by hand due to difficulties in handling by automated placement. Specifically, during manufacturing of the seals, the seals often need to be handled in order to move the seals (e.g., to the next step in the manufacturing process). More specifically, during manufacture of the seals, the seals may need to be handled in order to hold, locate and/or orient the seals during certain processes (e.g., bending, coating and/or plating of the seals). Additionally, during manufacturing of the seals, the seals often need to be handled in order to move the seals for packaging. Finally, during installation of the seals, the seals often need to be handled or held in a particular location and/or orientation in order to ensure proper sealing.
Previous methods for handling plated seals have required gloved hands, sensitivity as to where you handle the seal being careful not to touch the critical sealing faces, and the possibilities of particle generation due to mishandling of the critical sealing faces, which is labor intensive and prohibitive to automated processes. Previous methods of making seals sometimes resulted in out of flatness conditions making it difficult to produce and handle seals in mass quantities and also making installation more time consuming. Lack of stability of seal shape could also lead to miss-alignment during installation leading to particle generation. These examples of problems making and using the prior seals are not exhaustive.
Some examples of known seals are disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,730,445 to Swensen et al.; U.S. Pat. No. 5,630,593 to Swensen et al.; U.S. Pat. No. 5,249,814 to Halling; and U.S. Pat. No. 4,915,397 to Nicholson.
In view of the above, it will be apparent to those skilled in the art from this disclosure that there exists a need for an improved pressure-energized metallic seal and a method of manufacturing such a seal that overcome the problems in the prior art. This invention addresses these needs in the art as well as other needs, which will become apparent to those skilled in the art from this disclosure.